Thinking Blocks teaches students in grades 4 - 6 how to model and solve multistep word problems dealing with ratio and proportion. Using brightly colored blocks, students model the relationships among the components of each word problem. With the help of a virtual teacher, students walk through a simple problem solving process and arrive at a solution. When building the models, students must identify information that is given as well as information that is unknown - a key part of algebra. Thinking Blocks encourages students to look beyond the surface to discover the concepts and relationships that are at the core of every math problem.

This material is based upon work supported by the
National Science Foundation under Grant DUE-0226284.
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National Science Foundation.